The first newsletter I subscribed to in what appears to be a resurgence in an old 90’s trend was that of Steve Clayton, Microsoft’s Chief Storyteller. From what I’ve gathered, he is responsible for the broad themes and stories utilized for Microsoft and the integration of their products into people and business’s lives.
I don’t actually know him, although we’ve emailed back and forth once or twice. I found him since an old client of mine liked something of his on LinkedIn, it surfaced, and I followed it. I’ve kept following it for about a year or more, every Friday. Certainly I haven’t read them all but they are fun and one of the inspirations for my own. Since I am unemployed at the moment, I can afford the time to do this daily — at least in theory. I am impressed at the consistency that Steve has maintained his weekly one over the years.
This week’s was a fun game to spot your artistic eye and see if things are centered, a skill I moderately worked out when building thousands of slides in PowerPoint at The Spur Group. You can check it out here: https://www.supremo.co.uk/designers-eye/
I don’t mean to steal his idea, that would defeat the purpose of this blog. However, one of the purposes is to think about the things you come across in your daily life, this being one of them.
After a few trials, you’ll notice it’s incredibly hard. Without going into philosophical questions of what it means to be artistic, which could take ages, I want to run you through a train of thought I have regarding my free time at the moment. I’ve always battled with seeing myself as creative or artistic. To me, artistic is a skill. It’s the execution of dexterity of a certain skill which I don’t have. I am ok at drawing for someone who hardly does it. When I practiced a lot, my music skills are fairly good. All of these take time to hone.
Quizzes like the is this centered question that a bit. Some people may naturally have a good sense for it — much like perfect pitch for music (which still needs training to assign letters to tones, etc.). Then there is your mentality and disposition which may overcome natural ability. In the centering game, some fastidious people may measure or take much more time to be certain of answers.
But when talking creativity, it comes in many flavors. Some create from nothing — at least seemingly. They build things, they design, they well create. However, for me, I’ve always been an interpreter, which has bothered me because it doesn’t feel creative, though I’m not certain I should care. The kind of creativity that I feel comes when dealing with constraints — cooking with limited ingredients, solving problems in work that don’t have a clear answer, anything that could be called a workaround.
I generally find myself wanting to organize things up front because that history can allow you to understand why things were done, when and which rules can be broken or bent, and how to move forward. Anyways…
Maybe all of this is just an excuse that I’m not good at art. But I’ve always had an issue with technical skills requirements getting in the way of doing the things I’d like to do. Maybe that’s something I’ll just have to work around.
(Sorry I know that last bit was a bit disjointed and poorly written, if anyone manages to read it, I apologize for your agony.)